Scandal of charity that takes but won't give

Sunday Times, UK/June 15, 1986

By Toby Moore and Mazher Mahmood

A charity based in London is cashing in on the publicity surrounding
Bob Geldof KBE and Band Aid to raise large sums of money, the bulk of
which is swallowed in administrative costs. The charity, called The
Hunger Project, is linked to a Californian sect known as Erhard
Seminars Training, or EST, whose best known member is the singer John
Denver.

The Sunday Times has established that the group tells its new
recruits, who volunteer to help to raise money, that it is 'a
partnership' with Band Aid, although no such connection exists.

The latest accounts from the Hunger Project, for the year ending
December 1984, show that little was spent on anything else besides
administration. Of 192,658 pounds raised, just says pounds 7,048 was
spent on direct aid to the starving. The project that more will be
spent on direct aid this year, but will not give a figure.

Figures published in 1984 indicate that about 15% of its revenues is
spent on a newsletter and 8% on educational briefings. But by far the
greatest expense is staff, communications and conference organising
which account for 55%.

Project volunteers are not licensed to collect money on the street,
although The Sunday Times discovered that they do. The chairman of the
organisation, Michael Frye, said yesterday: 'People are not asking for
money on the street but asking if people are interested in giving
money via enrolment cards. '

Christian Aid, which spends only 17% of its revenues on
administration, said last week that the organisation, which aims to
enrol 1% of the UK population by the end of the year, was threatening
the good name of agencies whose principal aim is supplying practical
resources to the starving.

Hunger Project, which claims to have 'enrolled' 4.2m people worldwide
was set up in California in 1977 by Werner Erhard a former used car
and encyclopedia salesman who had earlier developed a controversial
'personal awareness' system called Erhard Seminars Training, EST which
has been described as a 'cult'.

In America people joining the Hunger Project as volunteers are
encouraged to undergo EST therapy. American psychologists who studied
people who have attended the intensive two day induction to the
therapy say that people are prone to develop 'psychotic symptoms
including grandiosity, paranoia, uncontrollable mood swings and
delusions. '

Four years ago the Government's Overseas Development Administration
requested a confidential assessment of the Hunger Project by the
British Embassy in Washington. The assessment pointed to a link
between the project and the profit making EST Foundation. It stated:
'The Hunger Project was established and initially funded by EST and
the EST foundation. EST is a profit making entity established by
Werner Erhard which conducts training sessions for 'self-awareness'
and 'personal transformation'. EST is controversial for its use of
methods to break down personal defences, such as depriving trainees of
sleep and not allowing them to use toilet facilities during seminars.

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